


An Encounter

by spacemonstrosity



Series: better off together [1]
Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Past Finn/FN-2003 | Slip - Freeform, Pre-Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-24
Updated: 2016-04-24
Packaged: 2018-06-04 05:44:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6643726
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacemonstrosity/pseuds/spacemonstrosity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Could it be called hope? This blind desperation for a life outside of harshly lit, hyper-sanitary barracks and endless empty corridors. FN-2187 felt the deep yearning for a different life like a physical ache that swept through his entire body.</p><p>How can one so young miss things so deeply?<br/>How can a man miss something he has never known?</p><p>FN-2187 and FN-2003 find themselves alone in the armoury of Corridor 54.</p>
            </blockquote>





	An Encounter

**Author's Note:**

> I tremble  
> They're gonna eat me alive  
> If I stumble  
> They're gonna eat me alive  
> Can you hear my heart  
> Beating like a hammer  
> \-- Help I'm Alive, Metric

FN-2187 stared straight ahead. The metal of the bunk above him was clean once again. No trace of what had previously haunted its surface.

FN-2187 had learned over the years that neither an anguished sigh nor any act of rebellion would help: he just stared. He stared at the cold stainless steel the way that an infant stares in shock whenever a parent is no longer visible. These souvenirs had served as a memorial to the unlived life of a small human boy with the potential of a protostar and a smile so wide his cheeks would hurt; a boy who knew nothing of the universe yet placed all his faith in it. There had been at least fifty drawings of faraway worlds etched onto scraps of paper and plastic, his concealed holo player, and countless drives containing enough of the universe to keep hope alive in FN-2187.

Could it be called hope? This blind desperation for a life outside of harshly lit, hyper-sanitary barracks and endless empty corridors. FN-2187 felt the deep yearning for a different life like a physical ache that swept through his entire body. As he continued to stare into the grey metal, the ache reached his eyes and they began to well up.

How can one so young miss things so deeply?

How can a man miss something he has never known?

Crying made him feel worse. The Order was only as strong as its weakest link and as he cried FN-2187 felt like he was the weakest he had ever been. 

It was his fault really. Regulations are regulations. What would happen if every Stormtrooper was allowed to personalise their bunk space? The weed of individuality would bloom and undermine the strong foundations of a system that the First Order has instilled in every one of them. Where individualism flourished, anarchy reigned and that chaos was to be annihilated from the universe. 

A blurry haze was draped over these thoughts as they occurred to FN-2187. Something about them didn’t sit right with him. It was becoming more and more regular for his doubts to bubble to the surface of his consciousness. Perhaps he should submit to reconditioning soon. The periods of uncomfortable doubt always ended with FN-2187 suffering a punishment as well as reconditioning; he figured this time he’d save himself the pain.

“Hey, Eighty-Seven! Get over here.” FN-2003, or Slip as FN Corps would call him, whispered through gritted teeth. Slip leaned into the room, holding his arm to the automatic door. Slip was slimmer than most other Stormtroopers but he was undeniably muscular; where on FN-2187 the body glove would sag fractionally around his legs and stomach, on Slip faint lines of muscle were visible and the pants of the glove looked to only just fit. His pale complexion seemed peaky, as if he were expectant and slightly on edge, and he bounced on both legs in the doorway. Eighty-Seven cleared his throat as he ran his hands over his face, feigning drowsiness to cover for his slightly puffy cheeks and eyes. 

“What is it?” he mumbled without urgency.

“Dude, just get your ass over here. We have our  _ shift _ .” As unsubtle as Slip was, with a clouded mind Eighty-Seven struggled to grasp his meaning.

With a noncommittal grunt Eighty-Seven sat up and ducked his head beneath the top bunk to peer at the clock. 15:04, 67/365. Only now did he register the reason for Slip’s impatience, with eyes widening.

“Oh, shit right okay. Just a sec, Slip.” The button jammed again as Eighty-Seven tried to make his bed. “C’mon, for fucks sake! Right now, really?”

“Leave it, and let’s gooo.” Slip chuckled as he watched Eighty-Seven pummel the control pad one last time before grabbing his ID card. 

The two of them walked at pace through the barracks sector, two lefts and a right before coming to a dead-end corridor. Corridor 54 was always deserted from 15:00 to 15:30 and every 67th of the standard year Eighty-Seven, Zeroes, Nines and Slip would meet and go to the Corridor 54 armory closet. Zeroes was adamant that on this day they would try their best to remember who they had been, or who they could’ve been, before they were Stormtroopers. 

The armory looked to be fully stocked and the two looked around the racks of blasters to check it was empty of guards as it always was at this time. Every rack contained enough blaster rifles full of shots to exterminate whole villages and to be surrounded by the weapons soberly reminded Eighty-Seven of the reality of Stormtrooper service. Neither he nor Slip had ever experienced real deployment as the FN Corps yet they both knew more about being an insignificant soldier than about real human experiences. That was the importance of these meetings. Eighty-Seven couldn’t remember how he had become involved with this tradition but nonetheless he continued to risk it all for these meetings. He had nothing to contribute being the youngest of the group and having been taken at such a young age; he knew nothing of his previous self. No tender memories had clung to the grey matter of his brain and no warmth remained in his heart upon the thought of the family to which he had belonged. Eighty-Seven had grown tired of the juvenile fantasies conjured up in childhood and he now understood he would never know family nor belonging nor happiness.

Slip let out a laboured sigh as he leaned against the wall to the East of the small, cramped room. Something contained within these four walls had the power to induce the feeling of security in which a person feels like they could open up their heart, raw and beating. 

“I’m not sure how much longer I can do this.” he whispered the words around a huff of a self-depreciating laugh. Eighty-Seven could only nod as he sunk to the hard, eerily warm floor to sit adjacent to Slip. “I know I can’t be the only one who’s growing more and more wary of this place, right? You feel it too?” His eyes were so tired like those of a being who had seen too much pain.

“I try not to think about it too much.” Eighty-Seven lied.

“Hm, yeah.” Slip fiddled with the material of his body glove and silence permeated the space between the two men. Eighty-Seven let his head fall back against the dense black wall behind him. As he inhaled he thought he could hear the distant whirring of the engine room. As he exhaled he heard Slip groan. 

“Slip.” Eighty-Seven said as he rose quickly to his feet. Slip leant into the blaster rack and conceded to his emotions with his arm covering his face. Eighty-Seven gently pulled Slip’s arm away and squeezed his shoulder before bringing his own hand to rest at the side of Slip’s neck, thumb tracing the line of his jaw. Slip smiled faintly at the physical contact, eyes shutting.

“I can’t--”

“Shhh, now. C’mon. Look at me, look.” Eighty-Seven’s gaze would reach into his soul if Slip were to open them now, so he sighed in reply and left his eyes firmly closed. Slip could feel the warm air of Eighty-Seven’s breath against his shaking chin. Eighty-Seven observed the way Slip had leaned into his touch, saw the tilt of his head towards him.  He inched closer to Slip, hand coming up to bunch into the material of the body glove at his waist. Touching his lips to the corner of Slip’s mouth, he wondered if this was the first time Slip would get off with a guy in the dark of an empty room. . Slip moved to connect their lips properly and the tension in their two bodies faded to nothing.

Many times before had Stormtroopers tumbled into the armory on Corridor 54 to fill a hole in their chests. The need for comfort, love and affection was a threat to the system; equally forbidden and as unforgivable as disloyalty. Despite the First Order’s hormone pills and propaganda the raw human emotions could not be dulled.

Lips, crushed beneath the passion of the kiss. Bodies, flushed together. One hand held Slip’s face tenderly while the other arm clutched his shoulders. Slip’s arms enveloped Eighty-Seven’s torso, fingers softly tracing the threading of his body glove.  _ The kiss was fast and Eighty-Seven had to hold back from taking it too far. His blood ran hot in his veins. It had been weeks since his last time in a closet with anyone other than himself. The testosterone shots would drive something more than aggression and the First Order’s libido reducing pills only functioned to a certain degree. With a warm body next to his, lust seemed overpowering but that was not to say that the person was irrelevant. Slip was the member of FN Corps most prone to mistakes and life as a Stormtrooper was harder on him than others. The comfort of an encounter on a lonely day could change whether that man would make it back to base after deployment or not. _ The knife edge of their seemingly inescapable destiny to be cannon-fodder became less potent.

Neither of the two knew exactly what the kiss meant because, in the end, meaning is insignificant compared to the high felt after a kiss. They did it for the sensation of a heart beating like mad for physical affection instead of being for fear of a blaster shot to the stomach.

“Wait!” breathed Slip as three knocks came at the door where muffled laughter could be heard from just outside. The sound moved like a shock-wave through Eighty-Seven and Slip. Each shoving the other away to opposite poles of the armory, the distance between them a relative chasm compared to moments ago. Slip turned to begin disassembling a blaster rifle and Eighty-Seven could only stare at the white tile floor.

“Fuckin’ A!” Nines laughs as he strides into the room, filling it with the hot air brought about by a personality too large to be contained in such a small room. “What I’d had given for that kind of bollocking for what I did on Herrik. Wow, I mean...”

Sound melted away the way it does when your mind is racing. Eighty-Seven often found himself this way after an encounter such as this. The high of the moment dissipated and he felt as if there were a sour taste in his mouth. Was it an aftereffect of First Order brainwashing? The consuming shame of losing control deafened him and he slumped to the ground once again, wondering if anyone was paying attention to his reddening complexion. 

**Author's Note:**

> This is to be the first part in a series of works that I'm putting out. The series overall will be a slowburn stormpilot fic so I didn't want people to be put off from that fic if they really didn't want to read Finn/Anyone else.


End file.
